Marianne Stowell Bracke, Leslie Delserone and Sarah Wright

Data information literacy is a developing instructional emphasis for agricultural scientists and academic librarians. The motivation to articulate competencies and develop curricula stems from requirements of external funders, and from the awareness by some researchers of the uniqueness of their research data collection and/or a desire to eliminate redundant research efforts. Broad areas of competency in data information literacy include data organization and security, management, preservation, and re-use. Faculty see value in these competencies for their undergraduate and graduate students, but do not necessarily believe that they need or want to teach this themselves. These areas, like other information literacies, should be taught within a disciplinary or functional context, and may need to be presented in multiple instances for data users to develop fluency. Additionally, the presentation of this material will vary depending on the audience level, the time available, and delivery methods.

We present examples and suggestions for educational outreach to undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, research and extension faculty, the editorial boards of scientific publications, and agricultural information professionals. We shall discuss a variety of delivery methods, including online, in-person, one-shot, embedded, and cohort approaches.

In addition, we will discuss the need and value for librarians to be part of the data information literacy process. Librarians may underestimate their abilities to participate in this kind of instruction. However, data information literacy involves a combination of disciplinary understanding, awareness of relevant technology, and best practices of organization, curation, and scholarly communication. These skill sets, fundamental to data management, are core to library and information science, and can be easily overlooked without librarians’ input. When combined with subject expertise, this provides students with a fully rounded educational experience.